Open source software in libraries: A workshop

This site is a part of a hands-on workshop for teaching people in libraries about open source software.

Given the linked texts, the accompanying set of software, and reasonable access to a Windows or Unix computer, the student should be able to read the essays, work through the exercises, and become familiar with open source software especially as it pertains to libraries. More specifically, the student will learn the ideas behind open source software, a bit of its history, and how it is similar and dissimilar to librarianship.

Through the hands-on exercises, the student will learn how to uncompress and untar distributions, configure an application for building, build (compile) an application, install it, configure it, and finally use it. Applications used during these hands-on activities include: Apache, CVS, Hypermail, MARC::Record, MySQL, Perl, swish-e, xsltproc, and YAZ. Both Koha and MyLibrary are discussed but not described in terms of installation. The hands-on exercises are complete with sample data, configuration files, and sample scripts to get the student up and going quickly.